Around Rochester: Corn Hill Arts Festival

Filed in Around Rochester, Posts by Stefanie on August 13, 2007 with no comments

By: Stefanie

On Saturday, July 14th, I set out to the Corn Hill neighborhood of Rochester for their annual Corn Hill Arts Festival.  While I have never personally been to the festival before, I had heard many good things about it from friends – especially one who lives in the neighborhood and for whom the festival is just steps from her front door.

It was a perfect sunny and pleasantly warm day and as I walked up to the edge of the festival on South Plymouth and Fitzhugh, I was amazed at the crowds of people of all ages – families, couples, friends.

Cornhill

The streets were literally lined with vendors selling every kind of craft imaginable – beautiful pottery, woodwork – including wall decor and even furniture, original oil paintings (my personal favorite was of Italian scenery and neighborhoods), hand-crafted jewelry and so much more.

What typically happens with me at festivals, though, is one of the first things I want to do is get some food!  After walking a few blocks, we came across a small area with food and I purchased some pad thai.  However, I quickly realized that I made a rookie mistake.  Only a few more blocks and I would have discovered an entire Food Court area with probably more than 40 vendors – quite a bit more selection that where I had gone!  So, to make myself feel better, I purchased some Abbott’s Frozen Custard (Abbott’s is a Rochester phenomenon and some of the best ice cream, er, custard I’ve ever had!)

Back amongst the craft booths, it took all my strength to not purchase 1 item from every vendor!  Over 500 artists come from all over the country to display their items and each piece is a unique treasure.

I was at the festival for hours and I still didn’t cover the entire place.  Guess I’ll have to return next year!

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